


we're not the fortunate ones

by themuslimbarbie



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), DCTV, The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Normal Life, F/F, Step-siblings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-11
Updated: 2016-04-10
Packaged: 2018-06-01 13:56:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6522583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themuslimbarbie/pseuds/themuslimbarbie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's your classic love story: Girl meets girl. Girl falls in love. Girl finds out her dad is dating her girlfriend's mom. Girl tries to move on while sharing a bathroom with her ex-girlfriend. Girl hates her life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we're not the fortunate ones

**Author's Note:**

> shout out to Camille for the title!

It all starts when she meets this girl.

Which is the most cliché way to start a story, Iris knows. She hates it so much that for a moment she seriously considers changing her major because no serious journalist would ever write something so horrible. And she would if that line wasn’t exactly how it happened. And, as a journalist, Iris is obligated to tell the story as accurately as possible.

So it begins: with a girl in the most cliché way possible.

Iris is at some pre-med mixer with Caitlin when she spots her across the room – pretty and grinning and blonde _of course_. (God, what is with Iris and pretty blondes?) The girl looks up and their eyes lock, and for a moment Iris thinks this is it – this is the moment her life changes forever.

(Look, she said already said it was cliché. What do you want from her?)

The girl smiles and makes her way to Iris. She holds her hand out and says, “I’m Sara.”

“Iris,” she says back. “I just transferred.”

“Caitlin’s friend, right?” Sara asks, tilting her head slightly in this unfairly attractive way. Iris nods, not trusting herself with words. Sara grins and looks at Iris’s nearly empty cup. “What are you drinking?”

“Whiskey and coke.”

“My kind of girl. Come on – I’ll get you another.” Sara takes Iris’s hand and leads her behind the pseudo-bar set up and starts mixing Iris’s drink.

And she doesn’t mean pour some whiskey and coke into a glass. Oh no, Sara pulls out a cocktail shaker and goes into some kind of bartender mode, which would normally be really obnoxious and show off-y in a way that Iris is totally not here for. Except when Sara does it, it just looks so smooth and cool and, _okay_ , Iris thinks, she may be a little in love.

Sara tells her that she’s a double major – pre-med and women’s studies, and has no idea what to do with any of it. She picked the former because she needed something to try to match up to her perfect older sister’s prelaw major who then went on to get a full ride from Starling City University’s Law School.

“And the latter?” Iris asks.

“Because,” Sara says as she casually flips a bottle of cheap whiskey, “No woman should ever suffer at the hands of men.”

It might be the single most dramatic way to explain a major.

Yeah, Iris thinks, she’s _definitely_ in love.

 

 

She doesn’t go home with Sara. It takes literally every fiber of her self-control, but she doesn’t do it. After all, new school, new opportunities. She can’t just go home with the first cute girl she meets. She’ll regret it later, she tells herself.

Except Iris regrets _not_ going home with her the next morning. And the morning after that. And the morning after that. And pretty much every morning for the next week, until one day at work Iris goes to take someone’s drink order and finds Sara standing in line.

“Caitlin told me you work here,” Sara explains before Iris can ask. “Said if I didn’t stop talking about you and just ask you out, she was going to dissect me and turn my body in as her midterm project.” Sara shrugs and doesn’t seem even the slightest bit phased by the very detailed threat. “Apparently I was a bit… _distracted_ during our study groups.”

“Yeah,” Iris responds, “Caitlin can be pretty intense when it comes to studying.”

“Tell me about it.” Sara grins. “So how about it? Dinner? I know this great Indian place.”

“Sure,” Iris says maybe a little too quickly. “I mean, for your own safety, of course. Wouldn’t want Caitlin to turn you into her next project.”

“My hero.”

Iris grins. “I get off at seven.”

Sara picks her up at 6:55 and waits patiently while Iris finishes her sidework.

They eat dinner at this place two blocks from Jitters and Iris has the best chicken tikka masala of her life. And they talk. A lot. Sara’s surprisingly easy to talk to, Iris learns. There aren’t any of those “awkward first date silences” that Iris knows all too well.

Sara’s mom’s a professor at CCU, a botanist whose class Iris will probably never take. She came to Central City to be closer to her mom, who moved away after her parents split up a few years back while her sister stayed in Starling to be with their dad.

Iris tells her that she went to Gotham University for a semester because she thought she wanted to study psychology. Half way through, she changed her mind and switched to journalism. CCU has the better program, so she thought she would just transfer home. Which she kind of expected to suck, but surprisingly it doesn’t.

Sara grins mischievously. “And why’s that?” she asks, leaning forward, as if she’s baiting her.

So Iris kisses her. Leans over the table and just kisses her. The angle is awkward and her finger gets caught in Sara’s bowl of rice. So, as far as first kisses go, Iris is usually way smoother than this. But she doesn’t regret it. Besides, judging by the way Sara smirks at her afterwards, Iris is pretty sure she doesn’t mind.

“Does that answer your question?” Iris says as seductively as she can with her hand still in rice.

Sara purses her lips as if she’s considering it. “I’m not sure,” she says. “Maybe you could explain it to me again?”

Iris is more than willing to oblige.

 

 

Which, of course, is only the beginning.

They start spending time together. Like, a lot of time. Sara starts studying at Jitters during Iris’s shifts, and Iris starts visiting at this sketchy bar a few blocks from campus where Sara works. Within a few weeks, Iris even gets to know Sara’s roommate, Babs, a genius grad student with a knack for hacking. _(“So, say I have a lead on this story and needs a little help with a source?”_ Iris asks, which leads to an approval from Babs and a disapproving sigh from Sara.) And Sara joins in on the movie night Cisco forces them into every Thursday. (He freaks when Sara tells him she’s never seen Lord of the Rings. _“That’s the one with Dobby, right?”_ she asks and laughs when he lets out this horrified shriek.)

It’s good, this thing they have going. Better than good, even.

And here’s the thing: this isn’t Iris’s first rodeo. But it’s different with Sara and she doesn’t just mean the sex. (Although that’s great – there’s this thing Sara does with her tongue that’s… beside the point. Point being:) There’s just something about being with her that is different, _special_. It’s the spark Iris feels every time Sara touches her, the way the feeling spreads through her whole body and makes her toes curl. It’s the way her stomach flips when she so much as hears her voice. The way her heart beats a million miles every time she gives her this _look_ that Sara reserves just for Iris.

Sara makes her _happy_.

(Hey, if she is gonna be all cliché-y, she’s gotta go all out. Iris West does not half-ass anything.)

“Wow,” Barry says when she tries to explain it to him. “You really like this girl.”

“I do,” Iris says. “I really do.”

It’s strange for him to see her like this, she thinks. She hasn’t been this serious about anyone since Eddie, and Barry wasn’t particularly thrilled about that one.

He smiles. “I’m happy for you, Iris. Really. You guys are great together.”

“Yeah?” she asks. He nods and smiles sincerely. Iris lets go of a breath she didn’t know she was holding. Without thinking, she reaches over and hugs Barry. “Thank you,” she says.

She doesn’t need Barry’s approval, Iris knows, but having it helps.  

 

 

“First pet?” Iris asks one night, laying on Sara’s bed, watching her get ready for her shift.

It’s this thing they do from time to time, ask each other random questions about one another. Nothing major – just random little things that probably wouldn’t organically come up in conversation. Iris’s idea, of course, but Sara plays along.

“A canary,” Sara says. “My dad bought her for me. Everyone in my family hated her – she used to chirp all night.”

“Hm. That sounds familiar,” Iris says. Sara retaliates by tossing a hair tie at her. Iris laughs. “I had a cat. She was ridiculously fat and had this long hair. I called her Fluffy.”

“That’s original,” Sara says back. Iris throws the hair tie back at her. Sara grins. “Most scandalizing relationship?” she asks as she pulls a black tank top over her head.

Iris doesn’t immediately answer, which catches Sara’s attention. She turns away from the dresser and looks at Iris. She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t pressure her one way or another – just waits for Iris to decide how to respond.

“His name was Eddie,” Iris begins.

She had just graduated high school when he became her father’s partner. He was blonde and ridiculously good looking – like to the point where she and Barry used to call him a pretty boy behind his back. Other than that, she never paid that much attention to him. Until her first summer home when she ran into him while she was out with some friends. They talked and one thing led to another and the next thing she knew, she was kind of dating him.

He was older, obviously. Not old enough for it to be gross, but old enough to piss her dad off. Iris didn’t care, of course, and her dad eventually gave up fighting. She thinks he must have assumed they wouldn’t be able to work through the distance. But she and Eddie decided to give it a shot. And it worked for a little while. Until one day he called her because he had to tell her something and it couldn’t wait until she was back in Central City.

“His ex called him and told him she was pregnant. Four months. They had only been broken up for a month when I started seeing him.” Iris explains. “He… wanted to do right by her. So we broke up. And he got married.”

At some point, Sara had moved to crouch down in front of her. She doesn’t say anything, but she puts her hand on Iris’s. They stay there like that for a minute, with Iris just taking comfort in Sara’s presence.

Iris is the one who eventually breaks the silence. “So,” she says with a soft but playful grin. “What about you?”

“Oh.” Sara shrugs and stands up. “I don’t know. Probably Oliver Queen.”

Iris pauses. And then, “You dated _Oliver Queen_?”

 

 

Little known secret about Iris West: she loves boxing. And she doesn’t mean watching matches on screen at some overpriced sports bar – she means actually putting on the gloves and going a few rounds. She’s been doing it as long as she can remember. A cop’s daughter has to know how to take care of herself, after all.

When Iris lets Sara in on this little secret, Sara cocks her head and grins in a mischievous way.

The following Friday, Sara shows up an hour early for their date, dressed like she’s about to run a marathon.

Turns out Sara has a bit of experience with boxing. There was this gym she and her sister used to go to for martial arts lessons that started offering boxing lessons when Sara was fourteen and they hired this guy named Ted. Her sister was more interested, but Sara is competitive, so she ended up sticking with it for a couple of years.

Which is impressive, but it’s only a couple of years.

“Fair warning,” Iris says as she tightens her gloves. The gym is virtually empty except for a few buff guys who are too interested in their workout to pay attention to them. “I’ve been doing this since I could walk. I may kick your ass.”

Sara smirks. “We’ll see about that.”

Of course Sara boxes like a pro – it’s something athletic and it’s Sara, and there’s only ever one way that combination can turn out. But Iris has experience on her side and she catches an opening. Which totally would have worked landed if Sara hadn’t caught on to her and kicked Iris’s legs out from underneath her.

Sara catches Iris before she hits the ground and gives her a smile that’s half way between guilt and smugness.

“Cheater!” Iris cries.

“Winner,” Sara corrects her.

Iris’s eyes narrow. _Two can play that game_ , she thinks before she shoves Sara. Sara lands on the ground with a soft thud. Iris straddles her lap before Sara has the chance to get up and pins her arms down.

“Now who’s winning?” Iris shoots back.

Sara tilts her head in that stupid way she always does when she’s being smug. She looks down at Iris’s body and then back up at her in a way that makes Iris shiver involuntarily. Sara smirks.

And when Sara kisses her, hot and heavy, pulling Iris to the ground with her, Iris finds she doesn’t care so much about winners and losers.

 

 

This thing with Sara gets serious fast. Not bad serious, obviously – good serious. Serious enough for Iris to consider telling her dad about it. About her and Sara. And she decides she’s going to do it the next weekend she goes home to do laundry. But she barely makes it through the door before Joe sweeps her up into a hug. When he pulls back to look at her, he has the biggest smile she’s seen in a long time.

“I have news,” he says. Iris doesn’t even have the chance to ask what it is before he just blurts out, “I met someone.”

Which is pretty much the last thing Iris ever expected her father to say considering she had no idea her dad was even _thinking_ about wanting to meet someone. Still.

“Dad, that’s amazing!” she says.

They met through a friend of a friend. It was just supposed to be coffee, but then one thing led to another and the next thing he knows they’re… _happy_. He says it with a smile so bright that Iris can’t help but smile back. It’s the first time in a very long time that she’s seen her dad like this.

“When do I get to meet her?”

“Tonight, actually – we’re meeting her and her daughter for dinner. Now, I know it’s last minute, but they had dinner plans and then you said you were going to home, and we just thought ‘what the hell?’”

Iris considers mentioning that her father has never been a “what the hell” kind of person, but the grin on his face stops her. She’s fairly sure that if she were to cut him in that moment, he would literally bleed excitement. So she tosses a load of laundry in the machine and decides that she will wait until next time to tell her dad about Sara. She doesn’t want take anything away from his night.

But next time? Next time will be hers.

 

 

They meet at this little café half way between their house and CCU. It’s the kind of place Iris would always pass by and consider checking out, but never get around to trying. It’s cute and intimate without being over the top. The kind of place that immediately makes you feel relaxed and at home.

Except relaxed quickly becomes the exact opposite of Iris’s mood.

The sequence goes like this: Iris and her dad walk into the café, and he immediately spots her. A woman with the most beautiful curly blonde hair stands up and waves them over. The girl sitting across from her mother, who had her back to the door, turns around. And then, for the second time in a few months, Iris’s life changes forever.

Sara.

Which means the woman her father met, the one who makes him smile like a thirteen year old boy with a crush, is actually –

“Dinah!”

– Her girlfriend’s mother.

Dinah greets Joe with a hug and a brief kiss. She then turns to Iris, hugs her and kisses her on the cheek, and says something that Iris doesn’t catch. Iris fakes a smile and nods anyways.

And then Iris is left to greet Sara, who looks just as overwhelmed as Iris feels. But Iris knows Sara, which means she knows that Sara is about to drop the ball and tell their parents that not only do they know each other, they’ve been dating this whole time too. Which may just be a funny coincidence that changes nothing. Or a disaster that changes everything and wipes that beautiful smile off her dad’s lips.

So Iris puts on her best fake smile and holds her hand out. “I’m Iris,” she says. And then, just to layer it on, she adds, “You go to CCU, right? I think I’ve seen you around.”

Sara stares at her for a brief moment before she forces a smile back. “Sara,” she says. “And yeah, you’re Caitlin’s friend, right?”

Iris nods, not trusting herself to speak.

(Well, she thinks dryly, at least it isn’t a cliché anymore.)

 

 

Iris lingers around the house after they get back from dinner. _Laundry_ , she says even though Joe doesn’t question it. Which is the truth. And it has absolutely nothing at all to do with her not knowing what she’s going to do when she sees Sara later. Really. She’s completely out of clean underwear – it’s been a while since she’s been home.

A ting of guilt hits Iris. She’s never spent this much time away from her father. Even when she was at GCU, they talked and Iris made it a point to come home and see him as often as she could. But even knowing that, Iris knows the blame isn’t all hers.

“Hey Dad, how come you didn’t tell me about you and Dinah sooner?” she asks.

Joe smiles softly. “I guess I just thought it was too good to be true. And if it were true, I thought it could end,” he explains.

“But it hasn’t,” Iris adds.

“No,” he agrees. “It hasn’t.” He gives her his best apologetic smile, the one he reserves for times when he feels most guilty. “Are you upset I didn’t tell you sooner?”

Iris shakes her head. She steps forward and wraps her arms around him. “How can I be?” she asks, resting her face against his chest. “When you’re so happy?”

It’s the truth. He deserves it, Iris thinks, even if it comes at the cost of her own.

 

 

Babs is in the kitchen making a pot of coffee when Iris comes in. A full pot. For herself.

Iris grins. “Long night?”

“Aren’t they all?” Babs shrugs and holds up a mug for Iris.

When Iris declines, Babs raises a brow and studies her. Amateur mistake, she knows, and a dead giveaway considering how Iris practically lives off the stuff. “Is Sara in her room?”

Babs stares Iris down for a minute before she seems to remember that it’s not actually her business. That or she assumes she’ll just find out later – Babs has a habit of finding out everything, regardless of whether or not she’s told. “Yeah,” Babs says at last. “I think she’s studying.”

Iris thanks her and goes to Sara’s room, not bothering to knock. She finds Sara lying with her back on the floor, her feet propped up on her bed, and her nose in an O-Chem text book. She peers at Iris from behind the cover and smirks.

“Hi, stranger,” she says playfully. She holds a hand out to Iris without bothering to get. “Have we met? I’m Sara.”

“That’s not funny.” It totally is in that inappropriate way that is so _Sara_ that Iris can’t help but smile a little.

Sara finally pulls her feet down from the bed and, in some strange maneuver no one but Sara would be able to manage, rolls upright. She stands and steps forward to kiss Iris hello.

Iris steps back.

Sara stops. She frowns. “Iris.”

Iris crosses her arms over her chest the way her father always does when he’s determined to have his way on something. “What are we doing, Sara?”

“The same thing we’ve been doing all semester?”

“But it’s not the same. Our parents – ”

“ – Are not _our_ parents, Iris. _My_ mom. _Your_ dad. We’re not related.”

“But we will be. You saw the same thing I did tonight, Sara. It’s only a matter of time.” Iris meets Sara’s eyes and forces the best smile she can. “It won’t so bad. It’s not like we won’t still be in each other’s lives. It’ll just be… different.”

Sara’s frown deepens and she studies. “What,” she asks, “are you suggesting?”

“Friends. We should be friends.” It’s the most cliché breakup line, Iris realizes. At least it’s keeping with the theme.

“Yeah, except we’ve never been just friends.”

“But there’s no reason we can’t be.” Sara isn’t Eddie after all. “If not for us, let’s do it for our parents.” Iris holds out her hand and smiles. “Friends?”

Sara looks at her hand for a moment before she takes it. She doesn’t smile back, but she doesn’t tell Iris how stupid the whole thing sounds, which is kind of more than she expected in the first place. “Friends,” Sara agrees. Which seals it.

And if their hands linger for a moment too long, they don’t mention it.

 

 

The first thing Iris sees when she walks through the door of her apartment is Barry pulling a few beers out of the fridge. Cisco and Caitlin are in the living room, simultaneously cuddled up on the couch and arguing about the science behind _Fringe_. Iris plans to just sneak by and into her room, but Barry notices her way too quickly.

He takes one look at her and stops. “Iris, what happened?”

She tries to force a smile, but even she can tell it won’t fool anyone, much less Barry. “Oh. Uh, Sara and I broke up.”

Iris vaguely hears some sort of shocked response from Caitlin and Cisco, but it’s muffled by Barry wrapping his arms around her. It suddenly occurs to Iris how much she needs the comfort from her best friend. She hugs him back, burying her face in his chest.

Barry leads her to the sofa and hands her a beer. One of those lemonade things that everyone but Iris loves. She takes a gulp anyways.

“What happened? Weren’t you two making gross heart eyes at each other just yesterday?” Cisco asks, which is quickly followed by an ‘ow’ when Caitlin smacks him.

Iris takes another swig of her drink. She cringes slightly at the sugary rush, but refuses to put the bottle down. “I, uh, told her we should be friends.”

Nobody responds.

“Okay,” Caitlin eventually says, dragging the word out for a syllable or two too long. “I’m going to need you to explain that one.”

“Yeah, seriously.”

“Guys,” Barry hisses.

Iris finishes the rest of what passes for a beer in her apartment. “No, it’s fine,” she says putting the bottle on the coffee table. “It, uh, turns out that my dad is sort of super seriously dating her mom.”

There’s silence again, which is pretty much as good of a reaction as she’s going to get.

“Ouch,” Cisco says finally.

Yeah, Iris thinks as she begins to feel the alcohol, that about sums it up.

 

 

She sleeps in her own bed for the first time in a while. It’s not that she doesn’t love her bed because she totally does – maybe a little too much sometimes, honestly – but it was always easier to stay at Sara’s. Her bed is bigger than Iris’s little twin sized one, and she didn’t have three nosey roommates. Even Babs was generally too preoccupied with some project that could probably get her arrested to pay much attention to Sara or Iris.

Barry brings her cronuts and her favorite hazelnut coffee in the morning. Iris groans when he turns on the light and throws a pillow at his head, but sits up anyways. He rolls his eyes and sits on the bed with her.

“How are you feeling?” he asks.

Iris rolls her eyes. “I had two beers, Bear,” she huffs. Barry snorts but doesn’t say anything else. She sighs. “Honestly? It doesn’t feel real. I keep expecting to wake up and find out this whole thing was just some bizarre nightmare. Or for Ashton Kutcher to show up and tell me I’ve been Punk’d. Preferably the Ashton Kutcher one.”

“Is Punk’d still a thing?”

“Punk’d will always be a thing, Barry. Always.”

“My bad,” he says dramatically. “But in all seriousness, you know you don’t have to do this, right? Technically speaking, you and Sara aren’t related. Like, you share absolutely not genes.”

“But we will be family,” she says. “You didn’t see them together last night – I don’t know the last time I’ve seen my dad that happy. And if there’s even a chance that me being with Sara could jeopardize that then it’s not a chance I’m willing to take.”

Barry understands, she knows. The look on his face makes it pretty obvious that he absolutely does not agree, but he knows it’s her choice to make. He sighs and gives her a sad smile. “So now what happens?”

“Nothing,” Iris says. “Now nothing happens.”

 

 

So here’s the thing: Iris is absolutely not avoiding Sara. She’s just been incredibly busy lately. She barely has time to breathe, much less have family dinner with her dad and his new girlfriend and her dad’s girlfriend’s daughter who also happens to be Iris’s ex-girlfriend. Really. Her school work is starting to pick up and she’s had some extra shifts at Jitters, and there’s this major story for the school paper that’s she’s been working on, and it’s totally not avoidance if she’s actually busy. Right?

Yeah, she’s totally avoiding her. But can you blame her? There isn’t exactly a guide on how to act around your ex when you parents are dating. (Iris checked.) So yeah, she’s entitled to a little avoidance.

But here’s the thing about avoiding people: you always run into them. Always.

She’s picking up pizza with Barry when she spots her standing in the carry-out line, balancing her phone on her shoulder while picking her nails, an annoying habit she only does when she’s bored and half listening to the conversation.

Barry notices Sara a half second after Iris. His eyes widen and he spins on his heel in an attempt to block Iris’s view. He rambles something about not really feeling the pizza thing anymore as he attempts to redirect Iris’s attention towards the exit. Iris would be amused, if she wasn’t so focused on Sara, who just so happened to look over and notice them.

“I’ll call you back, Laurel,” Sara says as she approaches Iris. She hangs up without even waiting for a response.

Iris grins without realizing it. “Your sister is going to give you an earful for that.”

Sara shrugs but grins back. “Like that’ll be different from any other conversation we have.”

An awkward silence falls over them after that and it suddenly occurs to Iris that she has no idea what to say. “So,” she says in an attempt to say, well, anything. “Pizza, huh?” Iris immediately cringes and regrets speaking.

Sara cocks her head and stares at Iris for a second before she smirks, not even pretending to not be amused. “Yeah,” she says, playing along. “Babs forgot to buy groceries… Again.” Iris laughs and opens her mouth to say why she expected anything more from _Barbara Gordon_ of all people, but is cut off by the guy behind the carry-out counter calling Sara’s name. “That’s my cue,” Sara says. “I’ll see you around, yeah?”

Yeah, Iris nods, she will.

 

 

Iris goes to the next “family dinner.” And the one after that. And the one after that. And the next thing she knows, they’re a weekly thing. Usually it’s some kind of take-out, but it’s a free meal, which really counts when you’re in college. Besides that, it’s kind of nice, getting to know Dinah. And kind of the strangest thing she’s ever done, pretending to get to know Sara.

“Dad, Sara’s allergic to mushrooms,” Iris says, rolling her eyes when Joe suggests picking up an order of stuffed mushrooms with their Italian food.

“Now how do you know that?” he asks, probably more so because he’s embarrassed that he didn’t know.

Sara chimes in before Iris even has the chance to make something up. “I said it last week when we ordered enchiladas, Joe.” She hadn’t, but he would never know either way.

They get good at it – covering up their steps. Pretending to just be two friends brought together all of a sudden. So good that sometimes even Iris even begins to believe it. That they could be friends. That they are friends. And it isn’t weird at all.

Or at least she believes it until she catches Sara tilting her head in that way she does when she’s being smug, or biting the end of her straw when she’s pretending to listen to a conversation, or smiling in that way that makes the entire room sort of light up and Iris’s heart skip a beat. Which happens. A lot. So, okay, the believing thing doesn’t last long. But the fact that it happens at all means she’s making progress, right?

Right.

 

 

Dinah has absolutely no interest in becoming Iris’s new mother. Which, honestly, suits Iris just fine, because she made it this long without a mother and she’s pretty sure she’ll continue to survive without one. Not that Dinah is a particularly maternal person. In fact, Iris thinks Dinah may be the single least maternal person on the planet. Which, Iris actually likes, because, well,

She _likes_ Dinah.

Dinah is fun and loud and brings something to their house that Iris didn’t even know was missing. She drinks wine while she procrastinates grading tests and picks fights with academics online. She arranges flowers when she’s stressed, but has the common sense to never do anything with irises. She promises to bring a pie to the annual picnic and has to run to the store at the last minute when she remembers that she can’t bake.

Dinah Drake is the single most ridiculous woman Iris thinks she has ever come across.

There are little bits of Sara in her, Iris notices. The way she strums her fingers when she’s tensed. How she clenches her nose when someone says something absolutely stupid. The way the left corner of her lip is always the first to turn upwards. It’s the little things, the ones that make Joe practically look at Dinah with hearts in his eyes.

_It must run in the family_ , Iris thinks.

Joe proposes the week before finals.

When he stands up after finishing his Thai, Iris assumes he’s just getting up for another beer. Instead, he starts talk about family and happiness, and Iris realizes what’s about to about one moment before Sara. Which is still much quicker than Dinah who seems completely shocked when Joe gets down on one knee.

She accepts immediately, of course.

And if, in the midst of cheering and hugging and celebrating, Sara forgets to look at Iris, Iris doesn’t notice. She’s too busy avoiding looking at her too.


End file.
